UPDATE LINKS
Fool Me Twice – Release Survey
Digital Shop: Fool Me Twice, Book 2 Beta Draft ($5)
Alphabetical Master List, Alternate History, and Recent Updates
One Single Glimpse

Hello! Another surprise post from me, and I’m so excited to tell you that I finished the beta draft of Fool Me Twice, Book 2: Ashes to Ashes last night!

I wasn’t planning to finish this weekend — I had about sixish chapters left for Act 2, and then I figured another week to complete the 8 chapters in Act 3. But I was watching a marathon stream from my favorite streamer yesterday, and it was really great background noise. Plus, the back half of the story just needed a lot less work. So I zoomed through and finished!

Thank you so much for your patience on Book 2. It’s been three years since I published Book 1 and I never planned for there to be THREE years between the releases. Books 3-6 will come out much more regularly. Book 1 was written as I started my last teaching job, and you guys know that district was…well, I’m in a new and better job now and it’s shows by how much writing I’ve been able to do this year as opposed to the last three fall semesters.

What’s next?

I sent the draft off to my beta reader, and I’m going to keep to the final deadline I gave her to be fair — which was Feb 29. I never thought I’d get through Act 2 and Act 3 so fast.  While that’s happening, I’ll be doing my own read through, checking one last time for typos and consistencies. I don’t expect there’s a lot in this draft since I’ve read this so many times.

I’m releasing a survey to determine the best update schedule for this draft so that I can post chapters at a time when the majority of my readers are available to read. Please answer the questions 🙂

Book 2 will be published starting sometime in March. I’m hoping for the week of March 11, but it might be the week after. I’m so excited for you guys to get to read this. I’ll be editing book 3 this summer and releasing it next fall.

I’ve posted the beta draft for my Patreons. It’s available for free for Crimson Devoted tiers and above ($5) and can be purchased for that price from the digital shop.

Housekeeping Notes

I updated the Alphabetical Master List for the first time since 2020 with all the updates since then. There’s 137 stories listed! I also found a short story I wrote in 2021 that I never linked anywhere, so it dropped off the radar after I posted. One Single Glimpse — a short story about Elizabeth being a frontline worker during Covid. I added it to the Alphabetical List and Alternate History page. I also updated the Recent Updates page with the last few Flash Fiction Updates.

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Update Link: Hits Different – Part 19
Vote: Choose Next Flash Fiction Series to Edit

Hey, surprise! I had a choice tonight between working on These Small Hours or, uh, this. And I chose this for two reasons. One, I figure no one would argue with me, and two, more importantly, the ending of the last part wasn’t the plan, lol, and I have a picture in my head of what happens next, and I’m sort afraid I’ll lose it if I wait until Wednesday. Like I said, I doubt anyone is going to be disappointed you’ll get this instead of a chapter no one is going to read for six more months.

I’m making great progress on FMT 2. I’ll be wrapping up Act 2 tomorrow, and then it’s just eight more chapters between me and completing the beta draft! The first Act needed the most work, but the rest of the book has gone really solidly. I put in a lot of work last summer, and it’s paying off now when I need it most. If I can finish it during the upcoming week, I think I can start thinking seriously about a release date which makes me REALLY happy. I haven’t released a brand-new novel since last year’s Counting Stars. Signs of Life was an edited flash fiction.

SPEAKING OF WHICH–

I’m picking my next flash fiction series to edit, and my Patreon community has narrowed it down to Desperate Measures or Collect Your Regrets. Vote for your favorite choice!

I’ll be busy in 2024 editing — FMT 2 Jan-March, Hours April-June, FMT3 July-September, so I’m picking a project to work on next fall. It’s kind of fun to have so much nearly ready to release. It’ll be a busy year.

As we get closer to FMT’s completion, I’m gonna post a survey asking for some input on what kind of update schedule works best.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter at @crimsonglass or sign up for our update posts!

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Update Link: Hits Different – Part 18
Vote: Choose Next Flash Fiction Series to Edit

Hope everyone is having a good week! It’s been a busy one for me. After eighteen months of foot pain, I finally made time to get to a specialist, and of course — putting it off just made it worse. I have tendonitis in the Achilles tendon, so I have to make some physical therapy appointments, use a night splint, etc. and hope I can avoid surgery. On the bright side, I get a doctor’s note to wear sneakers the rest of the year, so…yay?

I’ve made a lot of progress on both Fool Me Twice, Book 2 and These Small Hours. I’ve edited Chapters 39-59 of Book 2, and I have about 18 chapters left, so just a little over halfway. I’m moving pretty quickly through it because this half of the book was edited in the summer already, I’m just reworking a few pieces and editing. I expect my posting draft to go pretty fast all things considered.  I’ve begun working on These Small Hours again — I’ve written 2 new chapters and plan to finish it next month or early March.

Last, I’m choosing my next flash fiction to edit. My Patreons narrowed the choices down to Collect Your Regrets and Desperate Measures. Vote above!

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Update: Hits Different – Part 17

I don’t know why, but it feels like it’s been a lifetime since I updated this story. Anyway, happy Thursday. Hope everyone’s week is going well. If you missed it, I posted a preview of Chapters 1-3 of These Small Hours last night to make up for postponing this. You can check that out on Patreon, in my Free Digital Shop where I’m storing all snippets and previews.

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Free Digital Shop: Excerpts & Previews – These Small Hours, Chapters 1-3

Happy Wednesday! Flash Fiction is postponed tonight — I had an unexpected busy afternoon. I stopped by my dealership because my lease was up, and, well, three hours later, I walked out with a new car. Paperwork took forever, and by the time I got home, I was exhausted. So we’re postponing the update until tomorrow 🙂

But I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so I uploaded a PDF of These Small Hours, Chapters 1-3. Patreon readers already read Chapters 1-2 when we did the poll over the summer, so I wanted to make sure I uploaded enough that everyone got something new. Let me know what you think so far!

A few writing updates –

• Fool Me Twice Book 2 is coming along nicely. I finished up Act 1 which was 14 chapters, and about 34% of the story. Before I dig into Act 2’s 17 chapters, I need to reset that act, track some story details, figure out new material to add, etc. But I’m happy with the edits so far. I’ve really struggled with the Sam storyline mostly because I don’t like her, lol, and the show didn’t give her a lot of POV (they never really do and KM doesn’t really have the type of acting style that lets me headcanon much), so I’ve ping ponged all over the place. But this edit is definitely the right one.
• These Small Hours — I reworked the back half of the story and started Chapter 22 this week. I took a break to work on the Mad World holiday story, but I should be working on that draft more this month and next.

See you tomorrow! And let me know what you think of the Hours update!

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Update Link: Hits Different – Part 16

It has been a very strange week, lol. We’ve had two delayed openings in a row (Tues & Wed), and there’s a chance for more snowy weather on Friday. Still holding out for an actual snow day, lol, where I can just sit inside and enjoy looking at snow instead of hustling my ass to clean off my car and dig out to go to work.

Hope everyone is staying safe and warm 🙂

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Update: At Christmas – Epilogue

Finally finished! As I wrote in my author’s note, I hope you enjoyed coming back to this world and checking in with some of the characters. I wish I’d had space or time to fully explore everyone from the original series, especially more time with Ned/Lois, Lucas/Felix, Taggert/Portia, Justus/Tamika, but then we’re talking at least another 20k, lol. I wrote and posted this as I went, with only a few re-reads for typos and consistency. I plan to do another clean up in about a month (there’s already two things I’m thinking of that I have to adjust) when I’ll be able to find those errors more clearly.

This ended up being twice as many parts as I planned, and over 46k! Crazy, lol.  Thanks again for reading, and I hope you notice the bread crumbs I left hinting at some future storylines if we ever come back to this world.

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If you accidentally got a post with 2022 updates listed emailed to you, whoops! I was cleaning up the Recent Updates page and was moving 2022 (I never updated the Recent Updates page ONCE in 2023, YIKES), and I left it in the “Site News” archive. That gets automatically emailed. Sorry!

I’m switching to a different format to Recent Updates. Listing them by story, and then the updates for the last month it was updated. That way the page doesn’t get as long or as unwieldy. And maybe I’ll remember to update!

I’ll see you this weekend for Mad World’s Christmas epilogue 🙂

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Update Link: Hits Different – Part 15

Hope everyone is having a great day 🙂 The week is going by faster than I thought it would (and yet dragging at the same time, time is weird), and I’m done the hardest part of my week. The kids are taking a test tomorrow, and Friday is a half day for them, so that’s a relief.

I should have Mad World out sometime this weekend. I’m hoping by Friday, but the schedule is tightening up just a little bit, so I can’t make any promises. But I have Monday off, so definitely by then! Thanks for your patience 🙂

See you then!

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Update Link: At Christmas – Chapter 6

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone is staying safe. A huge storm system has been moving through the eastern half of the country, and it’s just starting to hit us in NJ. So far it’s just rain, but it’s supposed to get bad over the next few hours.

Sorry this took so long! I had to wrap up all the storylines, so I can set up the short, sweet epilogue which will come later this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit back into this universe. I’d love to revisit it sometime if I can think of a good story hook. Maybe taking one of the awesome sweeps events and seeing how it affects this universe (the virus, the hostage crisis, the Black and White Ball). Something we could use like the panic room that ripples out until everything has changed. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in.

I started editing Fool Me Twice, Book 2. First chapters are done. I’m going to work on at least two more today, if not three.

See you tomorrow for flash fiction!

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